there's political will to make cuts in the pentagon. there isn't political will to cut entitlements. . so the kinds of things that republicans say they want to do, including preserving the tax rates for the top 2%, are not things there's a huge amount of public support for. >> republicans clearly are ignoring the political will of the people. >> they are just picking and choosing, which is what mitt romney did. you pick and choose and you don't get above 47%. they are trying to deal with the secondary problem and not with the first one. we got into this deficit because there was an economic downturn because of the bush tax cuts. you have to deal with that. you want higher tax rates and you want actually to lower spending on military. but you have to deal with entitlements, but until you agree on the problem and the politics, you're not going to come up with a resolution. >> richard wolffe and molly ball, thank you. >>> coming up, republicans told voters the president's policies were bad for the economy. new data tells a different story.